e height of the confusion following this alarming
incident, I remember seeing a lady,--one of the new arrivals
(there were several coming in at the time)--stoop quickly down
and pick up something from the floor. I thought nothing of it at
the time, and so paid little attention to her appearance. I can
only recall the suddenness with which she stooped and the colour
of the cloak she wore. It was red, and the whole garment was
voluminous. If you wish further particulars, though in truth, I
have no more to give, you can find me in 356.

"HENRY A. MCELROY."

"Humph! This should simplify our task," was Mr. Gryce's comment, as
he handed the note over to Sweetwater. "You can easily find out if the
lady, now on the point of departure, can be identified with the one
described by Mr. McElroy. If she can, I am ready to meet her anywhere."

"Here goes then!" cried Sweetwater, and quickly left the room.

When he returned, it was not with his most hopeful air.

"The cloak doesn't help," he declared. "No one remembers the cloak. But
the time of Mrs. Watkins' arrival was all right. She came in directly on
the heels of this catastrophe."

"She did! Sweetwater, I will see her. Manage it for me at once."

"The clerk says that it had better be upstairs. She is a very sensitive
woman. There might be a scene, if she were intercepted on her way out."

"Very well." But the look which the old detective threw at his bandaged
legs was not without its pathos.

And so it happened that just as Mrs. Watkins was watching the wheeling
out of her trunks, there appeared in the doorway before her, an elderly
gentleman, whose expression, always benevolent, save at moments when
benevolence would be quite out of keeping with the situation, had for
some reason, so marked an effect upon her, that she coloured under
his eye, and, indeed, showed such embarrassment, that all doubt of the
propriety of his intrusion vanished from the old man's mind, and with
the ease of one only too well accustomed to such scenes, he kindly
remarked:

"Am I speaking to Mrs. Watkins of Nashville?"

"You are," she faltered, with another rapid change of colour. "I--I am
just leaving. I hope you will excuse me. I--"

"I wish I could," he smiled, hobbling in and confronting her quietly in
her own room. "But circumstances make it quite imperative that I should
have a few words with you on a topic which nee